Now: Forty Nine

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A/N: 100K views! What! This is amazing! Thank you everyone. I will update again tonight just because you're all so lovely.

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We are bracketed by Mother and Da, who is mercifully unable to fight with a stubbed, wooden leg. Mary and I lean against each other, holding each other up as the entire village of women, children, and old or lame men trudge back to pretend our lives go on as-is.

It is odd how quiet is has grown. It feels bigger than just the loss of hundreds of bodies; it seems as if the buzzing of their souls once filled the air, and that, too, is gone.

We will collect our things this afternoon. We will move back home with our parents; neither Mary nor I relish sleeping alone.

Our cottage is at the edge of the village, but the whispers start many yards before, slowly growing so frantic that I am searching for the source of the panic long before our home is even in sight.

But when it is, I crumple to the ground, clapping a hand over my mouth as I let out a sharp sob. I am still reeling from watching Harry disappear into the fog and dust. My heart cannot process what is happening to me now.

Maria, with her five guards from Spain.
Behind them, Douglas stands, eyes tight.

Why has he stayed back? He looks pained, and in an instant I know Harry has left Douglas behind under the guise of protecting Maria, but really to keep an eye on her, to protect me. In my heart, I know this is true.

But when Maria gestures with a flick of her wrist for him to step up beside her, my heart falls. Little did Harry know what I can see now plainly on their faces: the lover Maria took, and who Harry cared so little to investigate, was his own steward.

My family had begun to bow, but seeing me on the ground, terrified, they slowly rise. Only Mary stares stonily ahead.

"What is this about?" Da asks brusquely.

"We are here for the girl," Douglas says, his voice flat as stone.

They have come for me, and no one is here to stop her. Not even Harry's trusted adviser.
After all, Maria is queen.

Two of them take me by my arms, dragging my knees in the dirt as they stomp toward the castle.

Mother, Da, and Mary grow hysterical, chasing and shouting at them until two guards handily knock them back with fists and a hissed: "Your daughter is a traitor to the Queen."

~~

I am taken to a set of stairs I've never seen before, but instead of curling up to the lavish quarters, this one curls down. Down to the place where there are no windows and there are no doors.

But at least I am alone in my cell.

There is no cot, no blanket. Nothing but me and four stone walls which are cold to the touch; the dirt floor still frozen from the winter that has only just passed outside.

When the snow melts.

On instinct, I cup my hands to my stomach, meeting the eyes of the guard who has locked me behind iron bars. "What will become of me?"

"I'm sorry," he says quietly, furtively. "I'll bring ye a spot o' bread."

Turning, he leaves, and takes his lantern with him.

I am left alone in the blackness.

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